18 (xardiner G. HiiUbard — South America. 



montana. As in Africa, so here, men who live in the dark forest, 

 die in the open. Mr, Stanley selected thirty dwarfs from the 

 tropical forests of Africa to take to England, but as soon as they 

 came into the grass-lands, the clear air and bright sun, they lan- 

 guished and died before the coast was reached. 



Northeast of the pampas, on the Atlantic coast, south of the 

 Amazon, is a province bounded on the south by a range of high 

 mountains, where rain is abundant ; at Maranhao, its seaport, 

 there are 280 inches of rainfall in the year. South of Maranhao 

 there is much less rain ; and instead of two seasons, the wet and 

 the dry, which prevail in the valley of the Amazon, there are the 

 four seasons of the year, but without extremes of heat and cold. 



Over the greater part of Brazil grows the coffee tree, the sheet- 

 anchor of Brazilian prosperity, since it furnishes 60 per cent, of 

 all the coffee grown in the world. The plant is not indigenous 

 to Brazil, but was brought there about one hundred years ago 

 from the old world. 



Brazil, inhabited by the Portuguese, with an imperial govern- 

 ment, has been saved from the anarchy and insolvency of the 

 Spanish republics. Her railroads have been built with economy 

 and have been generally successful. It had a population in 1885 

 of 11,000,000 ; two-thirds of whom were Indians and negroes, 

 and many of the negroes were slaves. Slavery existed longer in 

 Brazil than in any other civilized country ; the lash was com- 

 monly used on the plantation, and work continued from early 

 in the morning until late at night until 1888, when a law was 

 passed finally emancipating 1,300,000 slaves. It was opposed by 

 the planters, who said freedmen would not work, but would let 

 the coffee and sugar plantations fall to ruin. It was probably this 

 act which caused the overthrow of the empire, for in revenge the 

 planters joined the insurgents in establishing the Republic. 



The Portuguese and Brazilians are more peaceable and orderly 

 than the Spaniards or Spanish-Americans ; we may therefore 

 reasonably hope that Brazil will not repeat the history of the 

 Spanish republics, which has been one of disintegration, for 

 these republics have separated into two or more States. The 

 greatest difficulty in maintaining its immense domain will arise 

 from the enormous distances and the time required to travel 

 between different parts of the country. From Rio de Janeiro to 

 Matto Grosso is 140 days' journey by land, and by water the dis- 

 tance is 3000 miles. Communication is maintained by steamer 



